The White House warned Monday that it would veto the House farm bill as it now stands and signaled strongly that the fastest path to some compromise this summer would be by taking savings from crop insurance to offset Republican-backed cuts from food stamps.

The most severe of the food-stamp savings would come from reimposing tighter income limits and an outdated asset test that could force more than 2 million beneficiaries off the rolls. The estimated savings are $11.5 billion over the next 10 years, and the administration made note that its own crop insurance reforms could save an almost equal sum, $11.7 billion.

The release of the White House statement came as Democrats are slated to caucus Tuesday morning with the farm bill on the agenda. The House Agriculture Committee leadership hopes to win what could be a close vote on final passage, but this still relies on getting close to 50 Democratic votes, given the number of defections on the right in the GOP.

Navigating through this week will be difficult, then. The administration’s statement seemed designed to serve two purposes: put down a veto marker that will give liberal Democrats some comfort but at the same time try to keep the process moving into conference with the Senate.

Time and again, it also tried to temper the veto warning with a more conciliatory tone.

“The administration looks forward to working with the Congress to achieve crop insurance and commodity program savings,” the statement said, “while at the same time strengthening the farm safety net in times of need and supporting the next generation of farmers.”

Left unsaid is the fact that this White House has been remarkably absent from the farm bill debate thus far. President Barack Obama skipped over the issue entirely in his State of the Union address last winter. At a recent White House meeting with outside lobbyists and political operatives on the president’s agenda, it didn’t come up.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has been more active as the House approaches key votes this week. But he also has been far more hands-off than those who led his department in President George W. Bush’s administration, for example. To keep hold of Democratic votes and get to a deal this summer, more of the department’s technical expertise is likely to be needed — as well as more effort by the president.

The White House release of the statement late Monday came even as the House Rules Committee was meeting to set the terms for general debate Tuesday. More than 220 amendments — filling more pages than the farm bill itself — had been filed with the panel, which will hold a second meeting Tuesday afternoon to begin to cull the list.

Indeed, Wednesday and Thursday promise to be something of a brawl and the Agriculture leadership will have its hands full for those 48 hours.

A left-right coalition of taxpayer and environmental groups is demanding fewer farm subsidies and more transparency. And a fight over dairy policy pits Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) squarely against the ranking Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, Minnesota Rep. Collin Peterson.

The level of food-stamp savings, $20.5 billion, is five times what the Senate approved in its package, but Democrats have seemed to flounder in their response.

Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) is proposing to replace the entire $20.5 billion by cutting from farm support programs, but that requires him to gut much of the commodity title and will surely cost him support.

An amendment filed by Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), a freshman member of the Agriculture panel, offers more of a middle ground. Her proposal would set a gross income cap of 160 percent of poverty — compared with 130 percent of poverty under the farm bill. And she would also reinstate an asset test but at a more updated level of $4,000, compared with $2,000 under the bill.